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CVE-2015-5123: Adobe Flash Player Use-After-Free Vulnerability

CVE-2015-5123 is rated critical with a CVSS v3.1 base score of 9.8 and affects Adobe Flash Player, along with 7 other products in NVD’s configuration data. Per its scoring, it can be exploited over the network, without authentication, without any user interaction. The scored impact on confidentiality, integrity and availability is the highest available. CISA added it to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2022-04-13, which means exploitation in the wild has been observed.

Vulnerability description

Use-after-free vulnerability in the BitmapData class in the ActionScript 3 (AS3) implementation in Adobe Flash Player 13.x through 13.0.0.302 on Windows and OS X, 14.x through 18.0.0.203 on Windows and OS X, 11.x through 11.2.202.481 on Linux, and 12.x through 18.0.0.204 on Linux Chrome installations allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial of service (memory corruption) via crafted Flash content that overrides a valueOf function, as exploited in the wild in July 2015.

Severity breakdown

CVSS v3.1 9.8: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

• Attack vector: Network. Exploitable remotely over the network, with no need for local or physical access.
• Attack complexity: Low. No special conditions; the attack can be repeated reliably.
• Privileges required: None. No account or prior access is needed.
• User interaction: None. No action from any user is needed.
• Scope: Unchanged. Impact stays within the vulnerable component.
• Confidentiality impact: High. Total loss of confidentiality; sensitive data can be fully disclosed.
• Integrity impact: High. Total loss of integrity; data or system state can be fully modified.
• Availability impact: High. Total loss of availability; the component can be shut down.

Underlying weakness

CWE-416: Use After Free

The product reuses or references memory after it has been freed. At some point afterward, the memory may be allocated again and saved in another pointer, while the original pointer references a location somewhere within the new allocation. Any operations using the original pointer are no longer valid because the memory belongs to the code that operates on the new pointer.

Affected products

• Adobe Flash Player: from 11.0 up to and including 11.2.202.481; from 13.0 up to and including 13.0.0.302; from 18.0 up to and including 18.0.0.203
• Adobe Flash Player Desktop Runtime: from 18.0 up to and including 18.0.0.203
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop: 5.0; 6.0
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server: 5.0; 6.0
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server Eus: 6.6
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation: 5.0; 6.0
• Opensuse Evergreen: 11.4
• Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop: 11 sp3; 11 sp4; 12
• Suse Linux Enterprise Workstation Extension: 12

References

• https://helpx.adobe.com/security/products/flash-player/apsa15-04.html
• https://helpx.adobe.com/security/products/flash-player/apsb15-18.html
• http://blog.trendmicro.com/trendlabs-security-intelligence/new-zero-day-vulnerability-cve-2015-5123-in-adobe-flash-emerges-from-hacking-team-leak/
• http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2015-07/msg00028.html
• http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2015-07/msg00029.html
• http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2015-07/msg00032.html
• http://marc.info/?l=bugtraq&m=144050155601375&w=2
• http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2015-1235.html
• http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/918568
• http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/75710
• http://www.securitytracker.com/id/1032890
• http://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/alerts/TA15-195A
• https://h20564.www2.hp.com/portal/site/hpsc/public/kb/docDisplay?docId=emr_na-c04796784
• https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/201508-01